Researchers studying a rare, always fatal brain tumor in children have found several molecular alterations that drive the cancer, according to a new study from scientists at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and McGill University. The findings, published in Nature Genetics, identify potential new targets for drug treatments.

Almost 90 percent of children treated for low-grade gliomas are alive 20 years later and few die from the tumor as adults. However, children whose treatment included radiation had significantly lower long-term survival rates.

An altered radiation treatment schedule for the most common and lethal form of brain cancer extended survival times a new study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other organizations has shown.

Scientists have identified a mutated gene that causes a type of benign brain tumor that can have devastating lifelong effects. It may be possible to attack the tumors with targeted drugs already in use for other tumors.

Dana-Farber researchers have used a novel combination of two oral targeted drugs to dramatically slow the growth of glioblastoma brain tumors in mice, which significantly extended the animals’ survival.

Scientists from Dana-Farber and the Broad Institute have identified two DNA mutations that appear to drive about 15 percent of meningiomas, a finding that could lead to the first effective drug treatments for the brain tumor.